Secrets of the Neanderthals featuring Gorham’s Cave now available on Netflix

Gibraltar features in a BBC Studios Science Unit documentary film Secrets of the Neanderthals, that reveals new discoveries and advances in science that are leading to a deeper understanding of our closest relatives.

“The Neanderthals survived for over 300,000 years yet for some reason, they are gone, and we remain. This archaeological adventure sets out to understand how they were so successful for so long, and why they disappeared,” said a statement from BBC Studios.

It launched globally on Netflix on Thursday.

Following caves in Iraqi Kurdistan, Croatia and a secret location in France, the programme features “the Gorham’s Cave complex of Gibraltar, evidence points to one of the last places Neanderthals inhabited before they finally went extinct.”

With exclusive access to the famous Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan, Secrets of the Neanderthals follows a group of archaeologists from the University of Cambridge and Liverpool John Moores University, led by Professor Graeme Barker, as they team up with their Kurdish colleagues to excavate this iconic site for the first time since 1960.

Over a number of seasons, they make a startling discovery - a new body, ‘Shanidar Z.’ This is the first articulated Neanderthal skeleton to be found in the region for almost a quarter of a century. The film follows lead palaeoanthropologist Dr Emma Pomeroy as she painstakingly excavates these precious remains and sets about reassembling it with the team in Cambridge.

Alongside the new discovery, the team is reinvestigating some of the other bodies found in the cave during the original excavations between 1953 and 1960 by Dr Ralph Solecki - including the famous ‘flower burial’.

The discoveries they make in this remarkable cave are building a vivid new picture of the world of the Neanderthals. Using the innovative new VFX techniques, the underlying shape of Neanderthal skulls has been mapped onto the faces of modern human actors, allowing this lost world to be brought back to life with the most realistic reconstructions of the Neanderthals ever achieved. And all of it is based on the archaeological evidence from Shanidar alongside other locations across the Neanderthal range.

In Krapina, Croatia, the film visits a cave where evidence of Neanderthal cannibalism may contain a hidden meaning; in a secret location in Bruniquel, France, a ring of stalagmites has been discovered deep into a cave, built by Neanderthals some 170,000 years before Stonehenge.

“What is emerging from these sites is a radical new understanding of our distant cousins. Far from being brutish, thickset ‘cavemen,’ Neanderthals are revealed to be a caring, empathetic, and creative group of people. They were just another way of being human,” said the BBC Studio statement.

Secrets of the Neanderthals is produced by the same team behind the recent Netflix film Einstein and the Bomb. BBC Studios Science Unit has produced documentary films and series, and other titles for Netflix that include The Anthrax Attacks, Our Universe and The Surgeon’s Cut.

Andrew Cohen, Head of the BBC Studios Science Unit, said, “What a privilege it has been to be able to tell this story about one of the most important prehistoric caves on the planet. A treasure trove of archaeology that is yielding so much new information about the life and times of the Neanderthals.”

Gideon Bradshaw, Executive Producer at BBC Studios Science Unit, added, “With thoughtful casting, incredibly realistic prosthetic make-up, and meticulously crafted wardrobe - all enhanced by a revolutionary CGI technique - we have been able to bring Neanderthals to life like never before.”

“Every design choice, every scene is built upon evidence from the archaeological record, supervised by the world’s leading Neanderthal experts.”

Secrets of the Neanderthals, an 80-minute documentary film, is made by BBC Studios Science Unit for Netflix. The Director is Ashley Gething and Clementine Cheetham is the Producer. The Executive Producers are Andrew Cohen and Gideon Bradshaw.